Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Izetta: The Last Witch
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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This anime is raising more questions that hold me up in liking it, most of them related to Izetta.
I'm kind of unsure how witches fit in the world? I get that people don't like witches, but I didn't really get why Izetta was in that village or how she got there. She was with Finé (how she managed to even get to a village and nobody recognizing her would be nitpicking), but apparently Finé left her there? Did she really not burn whatever they're blaming for? Like, I have no way of understanding that this is actually some injust discrimination, the previous flashback made more sense because I thought they found her and were like "Burn the witch!" And at the same time, I'd like to know if Finé ever instructed her? Because Izetta seems to have no problems speaking with anyone on a formal level, in fact she's especially formal, so I guess I'd like more flashbacks on Izetta and Finé interacting or Izetta's upbringing. I'm okay with the leylines explanation, except I'd like for some time to be explained why are there leylines in some places and why in others not, I see the same concept used in other anime (actually named dragon's flow) which I suppose it's a cultural thing of Japan? But I'd like an in-world explanation of why they exist. I do have a problem about how this weakness was presented. I don't think she couldn't have dodged the jar, I mean, with magic she could have stopped it for sure, but I was actually confused because I thought that using a lot of magic weakened Izetta and deprived her of her reflexes, kind of like alcohol but yeah, whatever. The rest of the episode was okay, I mean I don't think I felt particularly hooked to anything else. And sure as hell didn't care on how unfunny it tried to be. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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So this country literally has a legend about a witch saving them but when they see a witch to go all angry mob on her... tonal dissonance much?
I'd be like if in medieval Europe some dude showed up that could walk on water, multiply fish and cure the blind and they just burned him... And now there all chanting her name and holding her as "the savior", make up your mind. So yeah fan service rolled its ugly head, for some reason. What kind of test group did they have? "I want a strong female protagonist, but every once in awhile she should be humiliated and groped, and make sure we catch plenty of sight of her boob. But you know, don't she her nipples, keep it classy. You can, however, show plenty of statue nipples, that's cool." |
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Muffum
 Posts: 100 |
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I usually don't mind the kind of fanservice in this episode, or at least I usually just find it dumb in isolation and it doesn't significantly impact my opinion of the show overall. Here, however, it basically killed a lot of my remaining interest in the show. I think a lot of that has to do with how the main subject of the fanservice is Izetta. One of her main characteristics is her total lack of self-worth, so when she's unwillingly put into those situations, it feels like the show and other characters taking advantage of her, even more so than with similar scenes featuring different characters in other shows. Combined with the way it's entirely played for laughs, everything about it rubs me the wrong way.
It might also have something to do with the way the main writer of the series presents fanservice that I'm having trouble articulate. Off the top of my head, I've also watched Guilty Crown and Macross Frontier, which had the same main writer, and the fanservice in both of those was just as awful and enjoyment-killing for me. I might give the show another episode or two, but considering I already found it pretty middling, I don't have a ton of incentive to do so. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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I think there was some comment from Izetta's "grandma" (don't know if she was really related or just a mentor of some kind) that the White Witch was a betrayer. I don't know if that mean she betrayed the witches by making herself known, or if she somehow betrayed the country - or both. But I get the sense that whatever happened to the White Witch, it wasn't good. She was probably some kind of tragic character who went down in unrecognized sacrifice. Consider for a moment that one of the most common tropes with pretty much ALL American super heroes is the idea that despite them saving the world countless times, they are often despised by the public for various reasons. This could be a similar type of backstory. I actually wasn't really bothered at all by the fanservice, though I was annoyed by the American publicist and her random as hell boob grabbing. I was annoyed by that mainly because she is playing such an extremely tired and frankly stupid role of the sexually aggressive/harassing boob grabbing girl who is meant as an "inoffensive" stand in for the male otaku viewer. I don't really consider that as fanservice in the same way that the voyeuristic views of Isetta's nude body were fanservice. I feel like they serve a different purpose. The voyeurism was about as mild as we see in most anime. |
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Darthtabby
Posts: 21 |
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I was disappointed by the fan service in this episode, especially the groping bit which strained my suspension of disbelief and makes it much more difficult to recommend this series to the uninitiated. One poster on another forum I'm on thought it betrayed a lack of confidence in the material's ability to keep the audience's attention -he was reminded of a scene in Game of Thrones where a character talks about his motivations while a couple girls make out. Could also just be that the writer likes this kind of thing as it shows up in some of the other series he's worked on, though on the other hand if the directors and producers he was working with weren't at the very least willing to include that kind of thing in their productions it wouldn't be there.
Anyway, would have preferred it if there was less fan service and more focus on some fo the new characters. The writer for this series has proven himself a strong character writer on some of the other projects he's worked on -granted in some of those cases the characters initially seemed like stereotypes/archetypes and the strength of their characterization was revealed in the long run. But even so, the characterization of some of the new cast in this episode didn't seem all that strong. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23860 |
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It's funny, I had a discussion yesterday with James Beckett here at ANN about Western reactions to Japanese anime conventions and all this wailing about fanservice reminds me of it. What we saw in the last episode of Izetta was way within anime norms. The creators of the show made it for a Japanese otaku audience that likes this sort of thing. Consider your viewing pain to be the inescapable reality that you are watching an entertainment format that isn't designed to cater to your Western sensibilities. Its pandering target lies elsewhere.
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Valhern
Posts: 916 |
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I don't know if that same argument applies here, because while in Western products (not animation for sure) we'll have our own kind of weird fanservice framing and cliches, which is perhaps less bombastic. What you discussed there was the whole sense of humour in Japan, not just how anime presents it, like, that idea could be applied to other Japanese media. This one is particularly applied to animation, and it's not as if almost every anime show produced has fanservice, hell, not every fanservice anime do it like this, Keijo this season is literally a fanservice show and it felt far funnier than whatever this anime tried to be, even doing the same joke. We can understand that this was a very lazy way to pander to certain audiences, but it's not as if I couldn't say that it completely undermines the characterization. It's not like I see it and I go "Oh yeah, Japan" and just roll with it for the sake of that. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23860 |
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Well, I'm not sure the real objection is the execution of the fanservice or the fact it actually exists. I have a feeling that for some viewers, at least, no matter how ... exquisite ... the execution, the real issue is that we are being asked to focus on a character's funbags and that seems incongruous with a show like this ... as we Westerners see it.
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ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
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I'm not big on fanservice, and I thought the views of Izetta's body were about as weak-sauce as anime fanservice gets (at least in the context of obvious attempts at titillation). Again, the boob grab stuff was utterly stupid, and I join in criticism of that, not as much because it offends me but because it is a dumb, mindless trope that has been copy-pasted into far too many shows. But I think the voyeurism was about as "tatsteful" as that kind of thing gets in anime. Is fan-service in and of itself becoming very tired and repetitive? Probably. If they are going to have nudity, it would probably be nice if they tried some new things with it rather than the usual "lets watch her bathing and changing" stuff, but it was par for the course.
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18226 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Actually there's no mention in the flashback scene of the young Izetta being referred to as a witch. She's only referred to as a "nomad" (read: gypsy), which is a whole other common class of prejudice in eastern Europe at that time. A nomad/gypsy being accused of burning a barn down wouldn't be an unusual thing at all. Let's also remember that the legends specifically refer to a White Witch, which means that she was likely a unique case. "All witches are bad except for this one which actually helps us humans" wouldn't be an unreasonable sentiment at all, and history and legends are full of such cases. (And I suspect that Izetta's gradnma referring to the White Witch as a "traitor" refers to her breaking custom about keeping the existence of witches secret.) But yes, I'll agree with others that there's still a lot more to be revealed there, like why Izetta and Fine didn't stay together over the course of what was apparently several years. I presume that it had something to do with wanting to keep Izetta's identity a secret, as hanging out with the heir to the throne would certainly attract the kind of attention that witches wouldn't want. Hence it can also be presumed that Izetta just moved on after that. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2535 |
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Absolutely love the voice acting in the dub, everyone was spot-on and no fake German(ian) accents. While Izetta's character didn't say much in Ep1, the screams sent chills through me! Also, maybe I'm an otaku because I sort of liked the fanservice and it didn't distract from the story at all, it was just there and didn't seem too out of place but obviously shoe-horned in. Yes, they really didn't need it but at least the lesbian American publicist is an equal-opportunity abuser
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HelloBucket
 Posts: 477 Location: Upstate New York |
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To be fair, I don't think the writers have any good reason to be confident of the material keeping people's attention because even with the fan-service the episode was pretty boring. The show has done well with its sense of adventure when it's emphasizing that, but as it's character moments have been a weak point. Doing an entire episode of characterization, exposition, and political maneuvering is playing entirely to its weaker elements. It would have been a far better episode if they had cut all the fan-service and focused on how to deliver this episode's developments in a more compelling manner. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2868 |
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sexy hitler is sexy.
about the fanservice, well, remember that the japanese have much of less a problem with nudity as a society than the usa (would say the west but I don't want to piss off the rest of the western world that was not made of puritan immigrants at first). so what the usa sees as depowering and humilliating it's a non-issue for the japanese. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2250 |
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I just assume that means the South won instead. 
I'm having a hard time deciding whether this show has a tone problem and is struggling to figure out how to handle the non-action sequences in an interesting way, or if it's just moving into a different genre than I expected. If it is more of an Action/Adventure-Comedy series, than the fanservice is more par for the course as opposed to a more jarring moment in a war drama. Even so, I'm more tolerant of fanservice if it's a) an expected part of the genre, like in an ecchi series, or b) used to further plot or characterization. Here, it's none of those things, so usually it'd just get an eyeroll and a half-hearted shrug, but I think it's made unintentionally worse by making Izetta--who just minutes before apologizes for dirtying someone's bed with her mere presence--both the butt monkey and Miss Fanservice. There's just something a little mean-spirited about treating the character with the lowest sense of self-worth like that. (And that ridiculous groping trope can go die in a fire; it's creepy and gross.) Though I can't decide whether dressing up Izetta in the most ostentatious outfits is funny or just odd, given how low-key her previous life seems to have been. Funnily enough, I was going to post a joke theory about Izetta using ley lines last week, but thought it was too obvious and on the nose given that she's basically using Earth magic. And I guess our glimpse of Germania's Emperor means we're sidestepping the whole Hiter/Holocaust issue, unless those prison camps he mentioned turn out to be more than just prison camps. Bianca's Heel-Face Turn also seemed unusually quick to me, but then I realized we only have 12 episodes. Oh, and I'm sure the show didn't mean it this way, but I found it unintentionally hilarious that if you took it to far enough extremes, Izetta asking Fine to give "everyone" a peaceful existence--during a time of war, no less--could be seen as asking her to set up a benevolent dictatorship. I know, I know, she probably meant "please work towards world peace", but I thought it was funny regardless.
Last edited by whiskeyii on Sun Oct 23, 2016 7:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11415 |
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Yeah, that's why they have women-only train cars to address this "non-issue."
There's a huge difference between showing nudity and showing sexual assault (as fan service, not as an intrinsic part of the storyline), and it's the latter that's depowering and humiliating. It may be a non-issue to most Japanese men, but I assure you it's not to Japanese women. Oh and there's also the tired trope that all American women are sexually predatory lesbians (which in anime is practically redundant, American or not). That said, I confess to feeling a brief moment of "serves you right" when Fine got groped too. The proper response to what Elvira was doing to Izetta (which given the way she sucked on her middle finger afterward was more than a boob grope) is not to look away with a smile and say, "Oh dear, well I'm sorry, but what can ya do - she's got good taste in fashion." If she'd put a stop to it right then, she wouldn't have gotten assaulted herself. I'm probably doing my usual skylarking, but did the statue of the White Witch seem like she was missing something in her right hand? |
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